


Drifting Through Hell In A Handbasket

by MiniNephthys



Category: Mogeko Castle, 大海原と大海原 | Oounabara to Wadanohara | Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea, 灰色庭園 | The Gray Garden
Genre: F/M, Inspired by Roleplay/Roleplay Adaptation, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-16 16:17:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 10,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2276313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiniNephthys/pseuds/MiniNephthys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You've made my life a living hell.  Everyone good is here.  (Ivlis/Yonaka collection, some of which are RP-based.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. like a house on fire

**Author's Note:**

> Now that apparently Ivlis/Yonaka has a following, I might as well post the fics I hadn't posted to AO3 yet due to being not standalone-y enough? And probably put future Ivlis/Yonaka stuff in here too, rather than spam up the tag with them.
> 
> Other Ivlis/Yonaka stuff I've done on here, that I'm not going to move: [This Time I Know No Song](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2033520), [My Blade Is Sharp](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2182350), and part of [I'm Into That](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2258031).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Different ways to help someone relax.

It’s hard, being Ivlis. It’s especially hard being Ivlis stuck in a small castle with a bunch of his enemies and with his only subordinate being Emalf. It’s hard and nobody understands.

Yonaka, at least, is sympathetic. He’ll never say that he needs the sympathy, but he doesn’t push her away when she starts talking to him, and with how frequently they run into each other he suspects she considers him a friend by now. He doesn’t correct her.

“You look tense,” she says, settling down beside him on his room’s bed. It’s one of the few places he can expect to have privacy, and one of the few places her brother won’t pop up mysteriously in the middle of their conversation.

He doesn’t like her brother much.

“Guess I am a little,” he says.

She’s silent for a few moments, clearly thinking, before saying, “I know how to give backrubs…?”

Ivlis turns to look at her. “You want to give me a massage?”

“I thought it’d be a nice thing to do. If you want me to, I mean,” she says, fidgeting.

He shrugs. Even that motion makes him feel sore. “If you’re offering, I’m not saying no.”

“Thanks,” Yonaka says, which is a pretty weird thing to say considering that she’s the one doing him a favor. “Wait here a second, okay? And take off your clothes.”

He hadn’t thought this far. “Even the scarf? I’m not taking off the scarf.”

“It’d make things difficult… I guess I could just get part of your back and not your shoulders.” She stands. “I’ll be right back.”

By the time she returns with lotion, pillows, and towels, he’s shed everything but his scarf, most of which is tucked under his chest to get it out of the way. He hasn’t gotten a massage in a long time: Rieta had wanted to learn how to give them, but those claws were not getting anywhere near his back, thank you.

Yonaka gives him pillows to lay on and towels to cover what she isn’t massaging. She rubs the lotion over her hands and starts massaging the bottom of his back.

He hadn’t known how tense he was until he was finally able to relax - it feels as though all the stress is draining out of him. Her hands are soft and the lotion is warm and he’s content to lie there and soak up the feeling of somebody else tending to him. Without being ordered, even. Somehow that makes it even better.

“How am I doing?” she asks.

“Pretty good,” he says. Can’t get too heavy on the praise. “Where’d you learn this?”

“Brother’s always stressed,” she answers, “so I picked it up while he was away.”

“Should’ve figured it was your brother,” he replies, shutting his eyes. “Too bad.”

Yonaka pauses for a moment before continuing to massage him. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Just that pretty much all the stuff you do is about your brother,” he says with a sigh. “You never shut up about him.”

“That’s not true,” she says, a note of annoyance coming into her voice. “He’s important to me, but he’s not my whole life. I’m giving this to you and not him, aren’t I?”

“Eh. It’s not my business, but he rubs me the wrong way.” Ivlis snorts at his unintentional pun.

She’s quiet for a moment more. “I’m glad. That you talk to me.”

He glances at her. “What’s with the change of subject?”

“I know friends aren’t really a thing devils do, but they’re something humans need. Even if you don’t feel the same way… you’re important to me.” She pulls her hands away and reaches for a towel. “I’m done now.”

...He feels oddly warm. It’s probably just from the massage. Still, it’s a pleasant feeling.

“...Thanks.” It’s not something he says often, and when she hears it her smile at him brightens.

“Anytime you need.”

* * *

“You look pretty tense,” Ivlis says, seated on her bed.

Yonaka nods. Her brother is more or less stable normally, but now and again something will upset him enough for him to revert to his more murderous personality. When that happens, she can’t help but feel as though it’s her fault.

Her bedroom isn’t always safe. But, if it has Ivlis in it, she doesn’t have to worry. He can handle anything that tries to come at him, and protecting her would be a lucky side effect of that.

“I guess I am a little,” she says, adding after a moment, “I wouldn’t ask you to give me a backrub, though, even if you knew how.” Ivlis’s claws aren’t meant for things like that.

Ivlis is quiet for a second, before abruptly pulling Yonaka to his chest. He’s warm, which doesn’t come as nearly as much of a surprise as him doing something like that at all.

“I-Ivlis?” she asks. He holds her closer in response. “What are you doing…?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” he mumbles. “I just don’t like owing anybody favors. And humans are supposed to like this sort of stuff.”

She shuts her eyes and presses her face into his coat. “...I like this sort of stuff with you.”

“Heh. Don’t get used to it, it’s a one time offer.” He strokes her back gently, and for a while they stay like that.

Yonaka doesn’t think any massage could be as relaxing.


	2. while you're still young

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four people who kept Ivlis and Yonaka from having sex and one who helped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Akoumi" is the name Red Wadanohara took in this RP.

Officially dating Yonaka had been a long time in coming, most of which Ivlis would have to admit was his own unwillingness to admit that he liked anyone at all, much less had romantic feelings for them. But they’d been in this castle long enough that it was inevitable that one day she’d get through to him, as much as he had stalled.

He’d gone into dating Yonaka knowing that, due to her history, she wasn’t going to sleep with him right away if ever. Which frankly was fine with him, he mostly didn’t care about that. He wasn’t Emalf.

Lately though, the makeouts had gotten longer, the hands had started wandering (hers first), and he was pretty sure that sometime soon she was going to make a move if he didn’t make one himself.

Tonight, maybe, what with the way Yonaka was sitting on his lap with her arms around his shoulders. From her position there was no way she couldn’t feel the effect she was starting to have on him. Definitely no way that she didn’t know- he could feel her smile as she began to rock against him-

Knock, knock.

Yonaka separated from him. “Should I…?” she asked under her breath. Ivlis shook his head.

Louder this time, another two knocks. And then, the sound of Shinya’s voice: “Yonaka, open up.”

“I have to.” Yonaka stood up and smoothed out her clothes before going to open the door for her brother. “Brother, what is it?”

“I haven’t seen you all day,” said Shinya. “I’ve been missing you. ...Hello, Ivlis.”

Ivlis grumbled, not looking at either of them.

Shinya’s voice lowered, seemingly gentle. “Yonaka, do you think we could spend sometime together by ourselves? It’s been so long since we’ve had some sibling time.”

“Ah… Of course. I’ll wrap things up with Ivlis.” She crossed the room back to Ivlis, pecked him on the lips, and whispered, “Next time for sure.”

Ivlis could feel how sharp Shinya’s glare was as he mumbled, “Yeah, next time.”

* * *

Ivlis’s room was more secluded than Yonaka’s and, as far as he knew, Shinya didn’t know its location. That had been on the forefront of his mind when he invited her in.

Now what was on the forefront of his mind was Yonaka pulling off his jacket. She’d promised him next time, and it looked like she intended to make good on it as she reached for his belt-

-and stopped as a high-pitched, bouncy song came out of nowhere.

_Vi undrar är ni redo att vara med-_

As Yonaka started cracking up, Ivlis looked left and right for any source of the music. “What is that?!”

She recovered from her laughter a little. “It’s… it’s a song that’s popular on the internet. A-and it just completely kills the mood, sorry, how do we shut it off?”

Ivlis sighed and pulled his jacket back on. “I’ve got suspicions.”

After five minutes of searching with the music still playing throughout the castle, Ivlis found Satanick, who was tapping his feet to the song. “You’re behind this, aren’t you?” Ivlis asked with narrowed eyes.

“How did you know?” asked Satanick, grinning widely.

Ivlis’s glare furthered. “It’s annoying enough to fit your taste in music. Now shut it off.”

“But I haven’t even taught anyone the dance yet~”

“I don’t care, shut it off!”

Satanick only ended up turning off the music after another half hour, by which point Ivlis seriously doubted he could ever get hard again in his life.

* * *

The room they’d found was on the third floor, with a canopy bed and a beautiful view of the moon and stars from the balcony. There was no reason anyone would be watching either of them, so they could relax here.

Yonaka and Ivlis were out on the balcony. “Seeing everything so peaceful like this is really relaxing…” said Yonaka.

“Yeah.” Ivlis didn’t want to admit that he hadn’t been exactly staring at the sky. “But you should probably get inside, it’s getting late.”

“Mm, alright.” Yonaka stepped inside, settling down on the bed. “Hey, Ivlis… Can you come here?”

Ivlis sat down next to her, not at all surprised when Yonaka leaned up to kiss him.

What did surprise him was the sound of the door opening. His head swiveled and he locked gazes with a smiling Etihw.

“It looks like this isn’t such a secret hideaway after all,” they commented to Kcalb beside them, who was rapidly turning red. “It’s a shame, I really wanted it all to ourselves…”

Yonaka blushed. “Um, we didn’t know that anyone else was using it…?”

“No, that’s alright.” A glint came into Etihw’s eyes. “Although, if you’re going to use that bed for anything, I should probably tell you-”

As Kcalb spluttered, Ivlis leapt off the bed like it was toxic. “We’re leaving.” He pulled Yonaka by the arm to her feet. “We’re leaving now.”

They didn’t risk any other rooms that night.

* * *

Ivlis was already shirtless by the time the screaming in the hallway started.

“Just ignore it,” he said.

Yonaka frowned, hands stopping just above the hem of Ivlis’s pants. “That sounds familiar… Isn’t that Emalf?”

“Probably.” It was definitely high-pitched enough. “So?”

“Don’t you think you should go check on him?” she asked. “He’s your subordinate.”

He snorted. “I really don’t care right now.”

“...Well, I’m not having sex with somebody screaming outside the door, so you should probably go try to shut him up.” Yonaka sat back, and with a groan, Ivlis went to investigate.

Emalf was indeed the one screaming, being chased around by a clearly pissed off Macarona and Yosafire while Froze stood by the side rolling her eyes. He looked battered and bruised, and his shades were missing.

“Emalf.” Ivlis folded his arms across his bare chest. “Tell me why you can’t defeat two girls and you made me come out here.”

“They’re not regular effin’ girls, they- Oh. Hey.” Emalf slowed down. “Guess you were kind of busy. Uh, it’s not a big deal, right? You’re not mad, Mr. Ivlis…?”

At that moment, Macarona and Yosafire caught up to him. Ivlis turned around and stomped back to the room.

“He’ll shut up soon.”

“...I don’t like the sound of carnage outside either.”

* * *

The castle had been oddly silent that day, but Ivlis didn’t think much of that he hadn’t seen anyone but Yonaka. If anything he was appreciative of that he got a chance not to be hassled.

Yonaka seemed to relish the quiet, too. She spent most of the morning reading in the library. Mid-afternoon, she found Ivlis again and firmly nudged him in the direction of her room.

At this point he didn’t need to think twice about it.

They didn’t leave her room until a few hours later, with both of them disheveled and smiling uncontrollably. Yonaka kissed him again before heading for the nearest shower. Without much to do, on a whim Ivlis decided to check out the front gates of the castle.

A familiar translucent red barrier had been put up a few feet outside the doors. He could see through it that most of the residents were outside- everyone except him and Yonaka.

Within a minute, Akoumi passed through her own barrier and grinned at him. “Did you have fun?”

He recoiled, the pieces fitting together in his head. “Did you… really…?”

“It’s been really hard trying to keep everyone out of the castle without saying why, you know.” Her smile widened. “So, if you’ve had sex already, I can take this down now.”

“...Do you expect me to thank you?” he asked. His glare might have been more intimidating had he not been bright red.

“Nope! Just doing a good deed!”

Ivlis resolved not to tell Yonaka about this, ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have you ever tried having sex to Caramelldansen?


	3. for the devil to dance again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a bad day, Yonaka lets Ivlis have a power trip to cheer him up.

“Ivlis,” says Yonaka, pushing herself off a wall of Ivlis’s throne room.

“Yeah?” Ivlis watches her approach, not getting up from his throne or even straightening up. After dealing with Satanick for most of the day, it seems like too much effort.

“What’s the point of having a throne?” she asks, coming to a stop in front of him. “I mean, it’s not just a cool chair you keep around.”

“Of course it’s not, it’s…” Ivlis hesitates. How exactly do you define a throne’s purpose, other than ‘looking cool and important’? “It shows that I’m in charge here. And it makes people suitably awed when they’re in my presence.”

She nods along. “So people kneel to you a lot when you’re on the throne.”

Not nearly as much as he would like them to. “Naturally.”

“And it gives you a power trip. Like this?” Yonaka kneels in front of him and sets her hands on his knees, gently pushing them apart. “Am I doing it right?”

He goes bright red and jerks his face away from her before she notices. Judging by her soft laughter, though, she has an idea. “That’s not… not normally how people do it.”

“I’d be kind of worried if you let everybody do it like that. Especially because you get so embarrassed about it.” Her hands leave his knees. “Do you mind if I…?”

“Do what you want.” The answer comes too quickly and he flushes further.

With a slight wave of his hand, the doors to the throne room lock themselves. He glances down to see Yonaka’s grin and immediately looks at the ceiling again.

She unbuckles his belt and pulls down his pants and underwear without fumbling. He’s not yet hard, but her firm strokes coupled with the situation work to change that quickly.

His breath catches as she leans in close enough that he can feel her breath. “Yonaka…”

“Yes, Lord Ivlis?”

Yonaka doesn’t do sultry. Half the time she has trouble with flirty and not snickering in the middle of whatever line she’s trying to deliver. But those three words make him clench onto the arms of his throne so tightly that he chips the paint.

She kisses the tip of his cock lightly before licking long stripes up and down the whole length of it. She drags her tongue, slowly at first but speeding up every time a gasp loud enough for her to hear leaves his mouth.

He lets go of one arm of his throne and rests his hand on her head, only managing to look down at her now that she’s no longer laughing at him. Her eyes are lidded as she licks, but at his touch she looks up at him before moving on to fit her mouth around the head.

She sucks on the tip for a few moments before sliding further down, careful not to scratch him. Ivlis’s teeth are too sharp to get near anywhere sensitive without extreme caution, but for Yonaka it’s much easier. Ivlis threads his clawed fingers through her hair and tries to hold back groans with only partial success.

Yonaka draws back, only to take him in further on the next slide. She licks the bottom of his cock with enthusiasm, and by the time she reaches as far as she can go the combination makes white-hot pleasure spread throughout his body. His voice grows louder as she moves faster, her name drawn out on his tongue amidst curses and wordless moans.

Climax comes down on him too quickly for him to warn by more than tugging on her hair, but she stubbornly remains where she is, swallowing around him and only pulling back when he’s finally done. She wipes her mouth on her sleeve, then stands up again.

“Feeling any better?” she asks, smiling.

He nods, still dazed.

“Don’t expect me to do that on days when you haven’t been hassled by those two. Especially not the ‘Lord Ivlis’ part, I don’t know how I managed not to crack up right there.” Yonaka sits down on one arm of his throne, leaning against him. “But you seemed like you needed it.”

He did need it, and for most people he couldn’t admit it so readily. But for Yonaka, it’s easier for him to say, “Thanks. Do you want-?”

She shakes her head. “Don’t worry about it. I just don’t like seeing you down.”


	4. for which I have to howl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "For a few weeks every year all our sex drives go through the roof. Lord Ivlis hates feeling like he’s anything less than in control."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The demon heat was a request and I have no responsibility for how little biological sense it makes.

Ivlis has been acting weird lately and Yonaka’s confused.

Really weird. He’s been avoiding seeing everybody, especially her and Rieta. When he does have to see people, he’s quieter than normal, almost sounding like he’s in pain, and won’t make eye contact.

After a few days of this, she asks Rieta about it.

“That’s right, you wouldn’t know, would you…” Rieta sighs heavily before beginning to explain. “At one point in the distant past flame demons had an underpopulation problem, and so in order to fix that, we naturally developed a mating season. For a few weeks every year all our sex drives go through the roof. Lord Ivlis hates feeling like he’s anything less than in control, so he isolates himself during this.”

“Hold up,” says Yonaka. “Isn’t going into heat just a thing females do? And Ivlis isn’t female.”

“You’re talking about demons, dear.”

“...Okay, good point.”

Later that day, Yonaka knocks on Ivlis’s bedroom door. “It’s me,” she says.

“Go away,” comes the reply.

That’s what she figured, but she won’t be deterred. “Rieta told me about the heat thing. It’d be easier just to blow off steam than to fight it forever, right?” Silence from inside. “Ivlis, I’m worried about you. Please at least just let me in for a little while. We don’t have to-”

“If I open that door,” Ivlis says, “you know what will happen.”

Yonaka swallows. “I’m okay with that.”

The door opens. Ivlis grabs her by the wrist and pulls her to the bed.

“You don’t understand,” he says as he pushes her down and climbs over her. From so close she can see his blown pupils. “You don’t understand how hard it is to control myself when I’m this way.”

Yonaka leans up enough to kiss his cheek. “So show me.”

A growl leaves his throat before he kisses her, deep and overwhelming in an instant. Distantly she feels him tearing her clothes with his claws, but she can’t bring herself to mind. His knuckles rub her breasts and it’s all going too fast but she can’t say she didn’t expect that.

She arches up when he rubs her clit, breaking the kiss to murmur, “Yes, Ivlis, please-”

“You smell so good, you don’t have any right to smell this good.” He mouths down the side of her neck, sucking between words and leaving marks her shirts won’t cover. “I want. I want to.”

He shoves his pants down and she realizes she’s not wet enough for him yet the moment before he spreads her legs apart and pushes in. It stings and at the sound of her crying out he slows, though it must be agonizing for him. His knuckles are frantic against her clit and breast.

When the pain recedes she takes his face in her hands and manages an, “O-okay, move.”

His next thrust rocks her into the bed, the thrust after that only more powerful. When she can keep her eyes open she watches the pure lust in his face as he moves. When she can’t, she focuses only on his body burning her up.

She rocks back against his thrusts as best she can, though she can’t match Ivlis for sheer power, not anywhere. Still, even an Ivlis who can hardly control himself deserves to have her do some of the work.

Her voice is loud, but not as loud as his for once: his lets out guttural moans that he only muffles near the end by biting onto her neck. It bleeds, but Yonaka’s not at all concerned, not when she’s so close to climax.

He comes with a growl, taking a long time to completely finish spilling into her, and Yonaka comes soon after. She collapses back onto the bed, and slowly he pulls himself off and lies down next to her.

“Feeling better?” she asks. He nods. “You tore my clothes.”

“That happens. I’ll get you new ones,” he says.

Yonaka rolls over and kisses his temple. “How often does this happen, again?”

“Once a year. It’ll be a week more before it’s over.” The flush in his cheeks is from embarrassment this time and not arousal.

“Don’t get me anything really nice if you’re just going to tear it.”

“I won’t.”


	5. burning faster for you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newly demon Yonaka has sensitive wings.

Ivlis had asked Yonaka several times if she was really sure about becoming a demon. It meant a lot of good things, sure: a much longer lifespan, strength and resilience, powers way beyond a human’s ability to attain. But it bound her to him and his world in a way that she couldn’t change her mind about.

She’d assured him, getting louder and more insistent with each repetition, that she was absolutely sure, and so he’d finally gone through with it, knocking her out first so that she wouldn’t feel a thing. The magic wasn’t one he’d had much cause to use before and he had the slight concern that he’d mess up something and give her horns sticking into the back of her head, but…

As far as he could tell from watching her passed out on his bed, it had gone fine. Tail, forked: check. Two small horns, curling upwards: check. Scaled arms and claws: check. All normal for a flame demon there.

What really struck him were the wings. A darkish red, textured like a bat’s, they were easily half her height. He’d outdone himself there… would be what he would like to say, except he’d really had no control over the particular traits she ended up with as long as he didn’t screw up the magic itself.

He nudged her a few times in the arm before she finally stirred. She reached to rub the tiredness from her eyes and squeaked as she saw the red scales on her arms. “Wh- It actually worked?!”

“Of course it worked.” Never mind that he’d been worried about messing it up himself. She didn’t need to know that. “How do ya feel?”

“Kind of weird, to be honest… I’m not sure how to describe it.” Yonaka sat up in Ivlis’s bed to look at herself in the mirror, awkwardly attempting to move her wings and tail to study them. “Does it get easier to move your wings? They feel like they’re not supposed to be there-”

“You just grew a couple more limbs, don’t push yourself. Anyway, they’re probably too sensitive to move much right now.” To illustrate, Ivlis lightly brushed the tip of one wing.

A whimper left her mouth, and her cheeks flushed. “Y-yeah, I see what you mean. They’re pretty-” As Ivlis stroked down the wing’s outside, Yonaka cut off in a moan.

Ivlis chuckled. “Even more than I thought. Don’t mind if I take advantage of that while it lasts, do you?”

With no hesitation, Yonaka nodded.

Her wings were even more beautiful unfurled, as they did on their own accord when he continued to stroke both of them. The closer to her back he moved, the louder the sounds Yonaka was trying to muffle grew, even as she resorted to biting down on her scaled fist.

“You make a gorgeous demon,” he said, rubbing circles with his palm. She was absolutely beautiful this way, and she was this way because of him.

Not that she hadn’t been beautiful before.

Her blush deepened as she started to answer, but he pressed his lips to the back of one wing and she lost her words in a moan of, “Ivlis…” Her thighs pressed together, her tail curled around one leg on instinct, and she started to reach down before catching sight of her claws and stopping.

Ivlis kissed from the tip of her wing to where it met the small of her back, each touch of lips making her quiver and gasp. The drag of his tongue brought out louder moans as she quivered and clung to the bed, carelessly tearing the sheets with her claws. Right then he didn’t care one bit, too preoccupied with the heights he could bring her to without touching anything but her newly formed wings.

“Y-you’re just teasing me,” she managed to say between gasps.

He smirked against the back of her wing. “Yeah, so?”

“So I want you to hurry up already-” She tried to glare at him, but the desire in her eyes made that ineffective. Instead she let go of the bed and scrambled at his pants.

He grabbed her wrists before she accidentally clawed into something sensitive. “I’m not letting your claws get near me until you know how to use ‘em.”

She stared at his face and wordlessly spread her legs apart.

Ivlis grinned, lopsided, and settled in between her legs. His belt was quickly shucked, his pants and underwear going the same way, and then he was pulling her wet underwear down enough to be able to push into her.

As soon as he was all the way in, he felt her tighten around him as she moaned his name, her head thrown back into the pillow. He stopped moving while her body shook.

After coming down enough to speak coherently, Yonaka said, “...It’s, it’s your fault for teasing me so much.”

“Didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking-”

A shallow thrust of his hips cut off her sentence into a groan. Ivlis built up a rhythm: toying with her new wings and hearing her sweet voice had worked him up more than he’d easily admit, and seeing Yonaka underneath him clinging to the bed and whimpering his name set his blood aflame with want.

Her tail wrapped around one of his legs as his pace grew faster, rubbing against him. With the knuckles of one hand he stroked her clit and smirked when her moans intensified and her hips began to rock back against his motions.

Just before she came a second time, she reached up and pulled him by the back of the neck into a kiss. That was enough to push him over the edge along with her.

After a few minutes of recovery, Yonaka rolled over onto her side to look at him. “...Kind of wishing your wings weren’t just a scarf so I could play with them. But the rest of you’s cute too.”

Ivlis wasn’t ‘cute’, but neither was he inclined to argue the point. “Do your worst.”

“Later. Right now I’m too tired.”


	6. travel without seatbelts on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yonaka misses Ivlis when he's dragged away.

Yonaka spends more time than she’d like missing Ivlis.

It’s not his fault when Reficul and Satanick drag him away. He doesn’t tell her or the others about what the Devils do to him when he’s gone: he just insists that they hide every time his tormentors come around. Yonaka isn’t capable of dealing with Satanick any more than Ivlis is, so she obeys, as much as she’d like to just punch that pervert in the face.

She misses Ivlis, and she worries about him when he’s gone.

While he’s away, she spends some of her time trying to distract herself, and some of her time trying to attach herself to what pieces of Ivlis are still in the castle. Right now she’s doing the latter as she lies on his bed and breathes in the scent of him still clinging to his pillow.

...There’s a scarf on top of his laundry basket, she notices.

Even Yonaka doesn’t dare to open his drawer full of scarves. He’s touchy about anyone going near them. But the laundry basket is fair game.

She picks up the scarf. It has his scent of smoke all over it, and she’d never enjoyed that smell before meeting him. Now that she’s used to being near him, even a whiff of it reminds her of his presence, and she smiles as she buries her face in it.

It’s still slightly warm. He must have only taken it off this morning, just before getting dragged away. She imagines him wearing it, and her with her face against his chest.

Her heart is aching in his absence. Her body is aching, too, but in a different way.

Her clothes in the Flame World are lightweight and easy to slip off, dropped carelessly beside his bed. She presses the scarf against her bare breast, rubs the soft material over herself and shudders. Ivlis’s hands are not nearly so soft, but the scent is all him.

For the moment, she can pretend that he’s there with her, and not somewhere else with who knows what indignities being forced upon him. She can’t help him at all, so this is only a way to help herself.

There are some tasks Ivlis’s hands just aren’t suited for, which makes it easier when her own hands slip down her stomach to slide against her wetness, then inside. She’s done this for him many times, spread herself open while he watched. With her eyes shut and the smell of smoke surrounding her, it’s easy to imagine that he’s near.

“Ivlis…” Her fingers press deeper into herself, drawing out soft gasps.

There’s a sound like a door opening that she doesn’t register, but a voice shortly afterwards breaks through her mental haze. “Yonaka?!”

Yonaka’s eyes snap open. Ivlis is staring at her, standing just inside his room. She makes to cover herself with his scarf, but it’s not well-suited for the job.

“...Hi,” she says, red in the face. “When did you get back?”

“Just now.” Ivlis looks her up and down, making her blush even more. “...Looks good on ya.”

“Thanks.” Yonaka swallows. “It’s really no replacement for you, though.”

He’s over her in an instant. Kisses are left over her shoulders and chest while he throws his coat and pants off. Another moment, and he’s pushing inside her. Yonaka keens and wraps her legs around his waist.

Every time he’s dragged away, she worries he won’t come back, or they’ll do who knows what to him. Every time he comes home, she has to reassure herself that he’s there, real and solid and alright.

He’s solid now, rocking her into the bed with each thrust. So she clings to him, breathes in the scent of smoke, and forgets for the moment that it won’t be the last time.


	7. stay the night with the sinners

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tails as a useful substitute for other things.

Yonaka always stretches herself for Ivlis, because that’s the only practical way to go about things when your boyfriend’s hands are clawed and he’s definitely too big to fit without some preparation. She doesn’t mind doing this, because the way he watches her when her fingers are inside herself, his eyes cloudy with desire and his breath coming in short pants, makes her heat up even before his body warms her up from inside.

Tonight, he catches her hand when she goes to stretch herself out. “Let me try.” She looks at his claws curled around her wrist, and he sees where she’s looking and turns even more red. “Not with those,” he says, and his tail lifts from where it had been lying on the bed behind him to nudge at her entrance.

She still has to spread herself open a little with her fingers to get even the tip of him in. He’s big, and she doubts she can fit the head of his tail inside, though he might be able to get the rest through if not for that. But even just the tip is warm, and flexible: he uses it as he would a third hand, slowly pressing as deep inside her as he can go.

When he can’t fit any more in without her murmuring her discomfort, he backs off a little, only to try and stretch her insides carefully with the width of it. Side to side, deeper in and then back out. Every part of her walls his tail touches makes her feel like she’s melting from within.

“Ivlis…” She clutches the bedsheets, trying not to moan his name too loudly though no one else will hear. “Ivlis, more…”

Despite how flushed he is (she knows his tail is sensitive, and she knows this from making him claw apart the bedsheets just from stroking and licking it without touching any other part of him) a smirk appears on his face. “I can’t give you any more of my tail. It won’t fit.” He punctuates this remark with another shallow thrust of his tail.

A frustrated sound that she can’t help leaves her. “You know what I-” She has to swallow another moan when he twists his tail inside her, and it interrupts her train of thought.

“Or do you want something else instead?” he asks, faux-innocent. It’s not convincing on him at any time that he’s tried it, and certainly not now, bearing over her on his bed with their bare chests touching every time Yonaka takes a heaving breath.

Yonaka grabs onto his arm, digging her fingers in tightly enough that it might hurt someone without scaly skin there. Even if she had the presence of mind to, she wouldn’t worry about hurting Ivlis. “Give it to me already. Screw me into the mattress, or into the wall, I don’t care, just give it to me!”

His smirk turns into a grin as his tail slides out of her. “As you wish.”


	8. wrap up your questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vendetto, caught visiting Emalf, learns something about his father's dating life.

The sound of footsteps outside Emalf’s door makes Vendetto instantly drop his game controller. They’re too light to be Ivlis’s steps, but that doesn’t rule out anyone working for his father who would immediately go to inform him that his wayward son was back in the Flame World.

So he makes a ‘zip lips’ gesture at Emalf, before hiding in his closet.

“Just a sec!” Emalf calls, waiting until Vendetto’s settled and still before opening the door. “Hey, Yonaka. What’s up?”

Emalf’s bad at lying. This will probably go poorly.

“I don’t even get a ‘Miss Yonaka’?” answers a girl’s voice. “‘Lady Yonaka’ is a little much from the people I don’t know, but I’m kind of getting used to it.”

Vendetto’s brow furrows. He doesn’t remember any Yonakas from when he was last here, and even Rieta doesn’t always get titles from her soldiers. Pretty much the only person in the Flame World who’s respected by everyone is Ivlis…

“Doesn’t sound right to me,” says Emalf. “You, uh, need somethin’?” There’s the hint of nerves starting up.

“Ivlis wants to see you in the throne room by five,” Yonaka says. “He sounded kind of ticked off.”

Vendetto can practically hear Emalf start to sweat as he asks, “Can you, y’know, put in a good word for me?”

“You know I’m not going to. If he’s mad at you he probably has a reason.” She sighs. “Why does everybody think I’m the nice girlfriend they can ask for-?”

She’s interrupted by Vendetto’s involuntary, “ _What?!_ ” from the closet. A moment of silence follows.

“You can come out now, you’re not fooling anybody anymore,” Yonaka says, finally.

Vendetto slowly opens the closet door. He’d been picturing Yonaka as a flame demon, but she’s clearly not, and much more unassuming than one even with a knife strapped to her belt.

Emalf begins to speak, but Yonaka interrupts him. “Okay, I see what’s going on. I won’t tell Ivlis or anybody about your secret boyfriend.”

“He’s not-!” Emalf starts.

Vendetto interrupts him again, shooting him a look that says ‘shut up with your clinging to heterosexuality this is a good cover’. "You’re dating Ivlis?”

“You haven’t heard yet? I’ve been dating him for most of a year now.” Yonaka tilts her head. “I guess you’re from out of town.”

“Yeah.” Pause. “You’re human?” When she nods, Vendetto asks, “How old are you?”

“Almost nineteen,” she says.

Vendetto tries to figure out how many times older than that he is and decides immediately that it is way too many. “Isn’t that a little young for him?”

“What are you, his mother?” Yonaka asks, folding her arms.

“Uh-” says Emalf. Vendetto shoots him another glare.

“I’m an adult! I can’t get married legally at home for two more years, but I’m not at home and we’re not getting married right now so it doesn’t matter.” She grumbles under her breath, then turns around. “That’s all I came to say. Show up by five, I won’t tell anybody about your secret boyfriend, take care.”

After she leaves and her footsteps can no longer be heard, Vendetto looks at Emalf, incredulous. “He’s dating an eighteen year old human.”

“You want me to tell Mr. Ivlis he can’t?” Emalf replies.

“...Good point.”


	9. a tethered mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A really stupid soulmate AU.

Yonaka has been open with the name of her soulmate, written on the outside of her wrist, ever since she was young. ‘Ivlis’, spelled with katakana. Most of her classmates shared theirs, and it felt weird not to be equally as forthcoming.

Probably it’s a foreigner’s name, some of her friends said. Wouldn’t he have a family name too? others said. Someone suggested that her soulmate was one of those famous musicians with only one name, while others pointed out that she’d still have his birth name unless he legally changed it to Ivlis.

It was mysterious. Yonaka wondered about it, but gradually she stopped thinking over it; she’d meet them when she met them, she figured. If she turned eighteen without finding them she might hire a soulmate detective agency to investigate.

Brother never shared his soulmate’s name. He said it was written near his heart, and he never went swimming with the rest of the family.

She wore the name openly, because it got tiresome to always remember to wear a tight wristband. It occasionally attracted conversation with strangers, but nothing worthy of note until she was seventeen.

Almost anything in Mogeko Castle was worthy of note, especially that horned woman who stopped looking at her cell phone to stare at Yonaka’s wrist. “Your soulmate is… Ivlis?”

Yonaka didn’t think that was worth mentioning compared to ways of getting out of the castle, but the girl seemed a little weird. “Yeah, but we’ve never met. Have you met somebody named that?”

“Not personally.” The girl paused. “If you get out of here alive, do you want me to let someone know? Word travels fast where I’m from.”

“If I get out of here alive, sure.” Yonaka chuckled, a little ruefully. “It’ll be something good to come from this whole mess.”

She remembered that conversation after she escaped.

(Her brother’s soulmate was written on his autopsy report. She pretended it was someone else.)

There was a lot of Mogeko Castle that she could have just imagined: possibly, the entire thing. So she didn’t put much hope in finding her soulmate until another horned person knocked on her door.

“Excuse me.” He took a short bow. “My name is Envi, and I am a demon who’s been sent to escort you to Ivlis. Are you busy right now?”

Yonaka looked at the dinner she’d been cooking, then back at him. “Let me just turn the stove off.”

Travel was quick, through portals that Yonaka supposed were much more efficient than taking the bus, even if they were a little scary. Their destination was swelteringly hot, and Yonaka found herself complaining, “I could have changed into lighter clothes first…”

“I’m sorry.” Envi sounded genuine as he guided her up the stairs to a castle entrance. “I forgot that humans were more sensitive to temperature.”

More demons in suits stopped them at the entrance. “State your business.”

“I am a messenger from Lord Satanick,” Envi said, and from the way he said it Yonaka didn’t think he was at all proud of that fact. “I’m here to bring a token of affection to Lord Ivlis. This is Yonaka Kurai.”

The demons looked her over before stepping aside.

“They know my name?” Yonaka whispered as they entered the castle. “And- I’m not supposed to be that ‘token of affection’, am I? I don’t want to be a concubine!”

“Don’t worry,” said Envi. “Ivlis turns those away at the castle gates.”

That didn’t make Yonaka feel much better.

The throne room was long, and Yonaka couldn’t see the person in the throne clearly until they got close to him. What she saw didn’t put her at ease: sure, he was handsome, but she hadn’t pictured her soulmate having claws…

“I’ve seen you before, you’re one of Satanick’s underlings. And- a human.” Ivlis squinted at her, frowning. She could see his sharp teeth. “If he’s trying to send me another-”

Envi cleared his throat. “Yonaka. Would you show Lord Ivlis your wrist, please?” He nudged her forward.

Yonaka wasn’t sure she wanted to get that close, but she’d come this far. She approached the throne and held out her hand with Ivlis’ name written on the wrist.

Ivlis was silent for a moment, before shrugging off his coat. There, on his left arm, was-

“I don’t know how to read that language,” said Yonaka.

“It says ‘Yonaka Kurai’.” An awkward silence fell after Ivlis said that, with Yonaka staring at the ground in front of her.

So, this was really him. Her soulmate. The one person in all the world… actually, probably all the worlds (plural), considering the circumstances… who she was meant to be with for the rest of her life.

She had no idea what to do. Neither, apparently, did Ivlis.

Finally, she looked up at him again. “It’s nice to meet you.”

A small smile appeared on his face, slowly. “Heh. Same.”


	10. when we look for the better things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ivlis’ temper is bad, but Yonaka’s is worse.

Ivlis’ temper is bad, but Yonaka’s is worse.

Ivlis can be pushed to anger by anything going wrong or standing in his way, but he knows when to reign it in and keep relatively calm: it comes with having an obvious sign that something is getting to him. If Satanick or Reficul saw his hair light up whenever they merely walked by, they would just have more ammunition for taunting him.

Yonaka isn’t capable of that. If something pushes her buttons, her first and only response is to stab it, whether that’s a good idea or not. She sees red and she can’t calm herself down until either the offending person is gone or Ivlis helps her out.

Ivlis ends up helping her out a lot, because there’s just no way that she can take out the likes of Satanick or Siralos, and they flare up her temper nearly any time she sees them.

Like today, for example, with Satanick here. Normally Ivlis has Yonaka and the few subordinates that he actually likes hide before Satanick arrives, but he’d caught him off guard this time. So Yonaka gets to hear exactly what kind of insults Satanick has for him. Today it’s the usual variants of useless, cockroach, useless cockroach...

Ivlis knows now by the telltale twitch of her hand even before she reaches for her knife that she’s angry. He doesn’t blame her: he’d be angry too, if Satanick didn’t do much worse than insult him regularly.

Before she can draw her knife, Ivlis grabs onto her arm. “Don’t,” he says, “you’ll get yourself killed.”

Yonaka doesn’t answer. Her glare is fixed on Satanick as she tries in vain to pull out her knife with Ivlis still holding on to her.

Satanick chuckles, watching the scene with a smirk on his face. He rarely makes sexual advances on Yonaka: something about ‘spoiled goods’ which had sent Yonaka into a fury Ivlis had barely been able to calm her down from.

“Yonaka,” says Ivlis. He tugs gently on her arm. “Quit it.”

“I’ll kill him.” Yonaka’s voice is low and flat.

“With that? The best you could do is poke a hole and then die.” It’s true. Yonaka’s pretty good with that knife now, but it’s still just a knife and Satanick is still a Devil.

“Oh, I’m sure I wouldn’t kill her right away~” says Satanick. “But really, I came here to amuse myself with making fun of you, so shouldn’t we get back to that?”

Yonaka grits her teeth and yanks harder on her knife, and keeps doing so until Satanick leaves. It’s only then, when nobody else is watching, that Ivlis can pull her to his chest.

“It’s fine,” he says, slowly stroking her hair. It’s not really fine, but the combination of his body’s warmth and his soft voice brings Yonaka back to her senses, and she finally loosens her grip on her knife.

“I’m sorry for making you worry,” she says softly.

“Heh, who says I was worried?”

He knows from her smile against his chest that she doesn’t believe him.


	11. our parts are slightly used

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scars, mental and physical.

Yonaka’s scars are mental.

The obvious lingering trauma is with Mogekos. Even though Yonaka knows that most of the Mogekos in Ivlis’s world are escaped defects, that doesn’t keep her from freezing up the moment she sees one. She adamantly refuses missions that involve dealing with them: those are assigned to Emalf instead, though both Ivlis and Yonaka know his track record is subpar. It’s just the way things have to be, or else there will be knives and stabbing just for her peace of mind.

Ivlis doesn’t necessarily discourage knives and stabbing, but there’s a time and place for those.

Less obvious is the scar that comes up when Poemi drags her father over to look at the remains of her toys. Yonaka follows behind, even though Ivlis has told her something of what Poemi’s playtime is like. Description doesn’t do the gore of the scene justice, and Yonaka whispers, “Excuse me,” before bolting back the way they came.

Ivlis finds her again, curled up on the floor, her face almost as pale as his. She only stops shaking when he puts a hand on her shoulder, and though he doesn’t ask, she manages a brief explanation: “When Brother killed our parents, they looked… they looked just like that.”

Yonaka and Poemi normally get along well enough, but Ivlis makes sure to keep Yonaka away from Poemi’s playrooms after that.

Ivlis’s scars are physical, but they aren’t the only scars he has.

He’s reluctant to take his shirt off the first time Yonaka suggests that maybe she would like him to do that, and she backs off immediately. She doesn’t bring it up again on her own, and their physical intimacy works its way around that stage so that she sleeps with him many times without seeing him shirtless.

It’s much later that he’s able to mumble, “Do not say anything,” with his hands on the bottom hem of his shirt. He pulls it off in one motion, before he can change his mind.

Yonaka doesn’t say anything. She brushes the scars on his chest with her fingertips, then lays a soft kiss over each of them.

‘I love you no matter what happens to you,’ she’s said before. At the time she said it about Satanick and Reficul’s torments of him, but this is far worse, far closer to his heart.

Ivlis shuts his eyes so that he can’t see the look on her face and starts telling her the story he’s only told Rieta before. It’s a painful story to recall, with more sting to it than the ache of an old wound.

She waits until after he’s done talking to hug him. He doesn’t hug her back for at least three seconds, and he doesn’t tear up for at least twice as long. He can be proud of that. He has so little to be proud of.

“Scars aren’t bad things, really,” she says later, trying to sound like she’s only musing to herself and failing. “Scars are for survivors.”


	12. making hairpins out of glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Insecurities and in-laws.

“My in-laws are all dead now,” Ivlis says, raising an eyebrow at the question. “We don’t talk about them much.”

After a moment or two of silence, he adds, “Not quite true. We don’t talk about her parents much. As far as I’m aware they were fairly ordinary human beings, and they were never very close with her. But her brother…”

He clenches his teeth, then makes himself relax. “She says her feelings about him were like any other sibling’s, so why is it that I feel like I’m still competing with someone dead? Who tried to kill her. I should win that competition without even trying, but she practically sparkles when she talks about him. Does she do that when she talks about me?”

* * *

“My in-laws?” Yonaka asks, confused. “Well, I guess you could count Siralos as my father-in-law, and Igls Unth as my sister-in-law, but… It’s not like I’ve ever met them, so I’ve only heard a little.”

She sighs heavily. “Ivlis doesn’t talk about Siralos or Igls much, or anything in his history before Siralos cast him out. I can understand why, he’s the worst father I’ve ever heard of and I want to stab him in the gut if I ever get the chance, but I wish Ivlis wasn’t so reluctant to talk about his past if I ask about it. I mean, I’m open with him about all the terrible things that happened to me. Fair is fair. And he trusts me, right? ...Doesn’t he?”

* * *

The truth:

Yonaka loves her brother very much. That will never change, no matter how many years pass. She will always treasure the memories she has of Shinya back before he was stained with blood.

But she only has so many memories of him from those days, and all of them are tinged with regrets and doubts. As she builds new memories with Ivlis, pure, happy ones without worries of what went wrong or what she could have done better, those memories of Shinya lose some of their importance. They will be brought up less and less often, and whatever measure of insecurity Ivlis feels now will fade along with them.

And even now, when talking to others, she sparkles when she speaks of Ivlis.

* * *

The truth:

Ivlis’s feelings about Siralos are complicated, and not even he understands all of them. He deals with things that he doesn’t understand by shoving them away and refusing to acknowledge them.

That he’s let Yonaka in this far is a sign of his trust. Someday, a long day in the future, Ivlis may come to terms with Siralos’s abandonment, and how a part of him still hopes that Siralos may welcome him back even as most of him seethes and demands revenge. Yonaka may not be here long enough to see that day, but what he’s admitted to her so far has helped him along that path.

Admitting anything like a weakness is difficult for him. But for Yonaka, he makes an effort.


	13. my empire for ashes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yonaka and Ivlis meeting: a version.

Satanick dragging Ivlis along into his world is nothing new, but he rarely drops him somewhere far from himself. Of all the places he could have chosen to abandon Ivlis alone in, it had to be this castle of Mogekos?

Ivlis grits his teeth. He knows Mogekos: there are plenty of them in his own world, and while he doesn’t exactly make a habit of talking to them, he knows the ones that he’s met are all defects who ran away from their worse-tempered relatives in Satanick’s world. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this is their home.

No matter how many Mogekos are here, they wouldn’t be able to stand against a Devil, even a… slightly weakened one. So Ivlis stomps through the hallways mostly unmolested by the inhabitants. Occasionally one starts to say something disgusting and Ivlis sets them on fire.

Where is the exit of this place, anyway? He checked the bottom floor first, of course, but the front doors are locked.

Ivlis has been searching through the castle for a while, traversing various floors with surreal backdrops, before he reaches a pastel pink floor. The decorations are surprisingly cutesy, and after opening a door he notices the girly canopy bed before he notices the human girl next to it.

“You’re not a Mogeko.” She watches him warily. “Are you stuck here too?”

“I’m not ‘stuck’,” he says with a scoff. “I’m just looking for the exit.”

“That’s basically the same thing-”

“Oh, there you are~~” calls an annoyingly familiar voice. Satanick appears next to them, smug as ever. “I was wondering where you’d gotten off to, cockroach. And who’s this?”

The girl takes a few steps away from him. “Uh-”

“Aaah, such a cute girl is completely wasted on such an annoying pest!” Satanick closes the gap between him and the girl and leans down over her. “Just forget about him-”

Ivlis can’t precisely see from his vantage point, but given the sound Satanick makes as he doubles over, he has a pretty good idea what just happened. If it were anybody else but Satanick, he might sympathize.

The girl brushes past the fallen Satanick and stands in front of Ivlis. “You were looking for an exit? There’s a portal on floor seven. It’ll take you to whatever world you want to go to. I can probably lead you up there, if you’re any good at running.”

Ivlis stares at her blankly for a moment before realizing. “Run? Ha. I don’t need to run from these pests.”

“Even better. Can I trade directions for protection? I can kill a couple of them okay, but,” and she lifts her knife from her side, “I can’t do crowd control.”

Now he’s just confused. “You trust me?”

“More than I trust that guy,” she says, nudging Satanick with her foot. He groans but does not move. “And I know I don’t want to go alone.”

“...Hmmph. They’re barely annoyances to me, so I’ll cut you that deal.”

“My name’s Yonaka.”

“Ivlis,” he says. “Let’s not waste time.” Because while he’s not afraid of Mogekos, he doesn’t like the idea of still being around when Satanick recovers.

The trip up the last three floors is fairly quiet. Yonaka makes occasional conversation, and Ivlis finds himself listening and answering, if tersely, for lack of anything better to do.

“You’re sure the portal will take me where I want to go to?” he asks, as they climb the long staircase.

She nods. “I’ve used it twice now to get home. I have a bad habit of getting kidnapped here.”

One stay here would be bad enough for any of the Mogekos’ chosen prey. Three times is just ridiculous. “You have some terrible luck.”

She shrugs. “I can’t do anything about that now. ...I’m not really sure where it will take me this time, though. I don’t have anything back home now, so I just want to be anywhere that isn’t here.”

They reach the top of the stairs. Ivlis hesitates, not sure of what to say, before settling on, “Good luck with that.”

“Thanks. Good luck with everything,” she says, and steps back. He nods, and opens the door.

He finds himself back in his throne room, exactly as he left it before Satanick dragged him away. Not a hair out of place. He breathes a sigh of relief, before choking when a small portal opens up and dumps Yonaka on his floor.

“Ow… I got to be on a bus the first time, what gives…” Yonaka picks herself up, and then notices him. “Ivlis?!”

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

“I don’t know! I told you I just thought that anywhere would be better than Mogeko Castle, and I guess, for some reason…” She groans loudly, and looks away. “Sorry about this. I know it’s asking a lot, but is there some empty house a human could stay in? At least for a little while?”

“A human alone in my world would never last a second,” he says. More slowly, he adds, “...I suppose you could stay in my castle.”

“...Really?” she asks. “I’m grateful, but, really?”

“Don’t read too much into it. Protecting you was nothing, and I don’t like owing people favors.” Not that there would be much of her left to owe a favor to, if she wandered around a city of demons by herself. For some reason, that doesn’t sit well with him either.

It’ll only be temporary before she can find some more suitable place to stay.


	14. go heavy on me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Revenge, the inability to attain it, and some consolations.

Yonaka Kurai is a human being, and she knows her limitations.

She knows exactly who the sources of Ivlis’s pains are. She sees two of them frequently, though Ivlis tries to get her and his other subordinates to hide when Satanick or Reficul come around. Of the pair, Satanick is the worst to Ivlis, in ways that Yonaka understands deeply. Defeating Satanick seems more doable than taking down Reficul.

But just because it’s ‘more’ doable doesn’t mean she could actually accomplish anything helpful. Even if she managed to stab Satanick right in his heart, it wouldn’t do more than annoy him. When it comes to the affairs of Devils, she’s useless.

Does that mean she has to watch Ivlis slink back to his throne every time Satanick leaves, bruised in new places each time and trying so desperately to pretend that nothing’s wrong? Does that mean she should just give up on him finding happiness?

“Ivlis, promise me something.”

Ivlis, sitting on his throne, turns to glance at her beside him. “What?”

“You’re an asshole, and I’m not going to deny it.” Before he can do more than narrow his eyes at her, Yonaka goes on. “But you don’t deserve this. Promise me, no matter how long it takes you to get your power back, no matter how long you have to suffer because of them, that they never will make you think you deserve this.”

Ivlis’s expression softens slightly. “Heh, you don’t need to tell me that. ...I promise.”

* * *

Even for a Devil, some things can’t be done.

Ivlis has been in the Pitch World too many times to count, and he knows where to find the hellhole known as Mogeko Castle. It’s easy enough to get there, if you’re looking, and sometimes if you aren’t.

A few words can set the entire place ablaze. When he’s not dragged there by Satanick, Ivlis usually comes to visit just to torch the place.

He does this over and over, because no matter how many times he burns it to the ground, Mogeko Castle springs up again within a few days. It’s less a building and more a world of itself, a permanent fixture in the Pitch World’s landscape.

Even if he were to destroy Mogeko Castle for good, he’s not sure that it would help Yonaka any. Her nightmares that wake them both in the middle of the night, the way she flinches at the sight of Poemi’s playrooms, these are more difficult to fix than just burning down a building.

But Ivlis doesn’t know how to help her.

“Yonaka,” he asks, in a rare fit of honesty, “why do you stay here?”

She opens her mouth before stopping to think over the question. “You make me feel safe.”

That makes sense. If anyone actually tried to hurt her, he would destroy them in an instant.

“And I love you,” she adds. “I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

That part he doesn’t get, but it makes him happy, somehow.


	15. the devil's backbone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yonaka exposits; Ivlis introspects.

“I used to have a brother,” she says. “But I stopped having one long before he died. I just couldn’t admit it.”

He listens, quiet. Sometimes she just needs to talk. Sometimes he needs to talk, too, but can’t.

“I loved him a lot, you know.” She knows he knows, so she doesn’t pause. “We were inseparable. Sometimes I wonder if we were too close, and if that had anything to do with how everything turned out. Sometimes I wonder if it was our unlucky names. I wonder a lot of things.”

She’s told him before: Yonaka, Shinya. Four. The number of people in their perfect family, but also, the unluckiest number in their language.

“There’s nothing I can do about it now. He was gone before I came home. Years before. Nothing I did would have made a difference for him, and I’m glad I survived in one piece.” She laughs at herself, a hollow sound. “Well, maybe not one piece. But I’m alive, is the most important thing.”

She’s silent for long enough that he takes this as his moment to speak. “Glad you made it out alive.”

He had a sibling, too. A long time ago. He doesn’t anymore, even if they are both still alive.

Is she still alive? If Siralos had found her to be useless and done away with her, it wouldn’t completely surprise him, though the thought does make his heart clench.

Well. It’s nothing he can confirm or deny without going back up there. And he won’t, not without an army behind him.

The feeling of her head on his shoulder distracts him from his thoughts. He strokes her hair, playing with one braid with his claws.

“I’m glad too,” she says. “Not about everything else, but at least that I met you.”

He makes a small noise of agreement. Affection is difficult, but she knows what he means.

He’s a Devil. A selfish, cruel-hearted Devil whose chief desires are power and revenge. She knows this as well as anyone.

But even a Devil can be kind to the people who are kind to him. Anything else is pointless, and likely to drive away any allies he might have had. That was his reasoning in the beginning, when they were only ‘allies’, though there was little she could provide him with in such an alliance.

She let him call friendship by those terms for as long as he wanted to. Now it’s something else entirely, that he finds harder to explain away.

Maybe she’s selfish too, in her own ways. If he’s kind to her, she’ll overlook him treating everyone else poorly. He doesn’t judge her for that: it’s a way of survival, putting your own needs first. And he knows it’s been hard enough for her to survive so far.

Maybe that makes them a good pair. Maybe their scars hurt less with someone else around.

There’s a sinking feeling that he knows well, that of some other Devil entering his world, and reluctantly he pushes her away. “One of those two are here. Go hide.”

She knows not to argue, though he can see in her eyes how badly she wants to. There’s nothing she can do for him, not against those two. Especially not if it’s Satanick. He dreads the day she tries and Satanick retaliates.

She pecks his forehead instead. “I’ll see you later. Stay strong, okay?”

He scoffs. “Who do you think I am? They’ll never break me in ten million years.”

...Ugh, the thought of this lasting for ten million years is horrifying. Her expression says she agrees.

“Just get going.” Ivlis can’t protect himself, but at the very least, there’s someone he can keep safe.


End file.
